I’ve always been fascinated by scent. I love how it attaches itself to our emotions. I’ve written about it before on Substack, in short stories in the past, but wanted to visit it again. I nearly didn’t press publish on this one but I promised myself I’d share a short story every month this year, so here we are. If you stick around to read it, know that I appreciate you.

As Liam started digging, he heard her voice in his head for what felt like the millionth time that day.

“God, I love that cologne on you.”

“Yeah?” He heard himself reply. “How much?”

“Enough that I want to be buried with it.”

As he pushed the shovel’s edge back into the mark he’d just made, twisting the blade to dislodge mud, he thought of the cologne she was talking about; its notes of blood orange, vanilla, and musk, and the way she had leaned in to kiss him.

When the funeral was done, and that bottle of cologne was sitting next to her corpse in the pit they called a grave, everyone promised him it would get better. They told him time would bring closure – that every day would get easier – but they were wrong. They’d lied. Instead of closure, days felt like months and nights grew teeth intent on dragging him into oblivion.

It was the concept of time he struggled with. The endlessness of it. He didn’t like the idea of that endlessness eating her or the thought of seasons moving against her skin.

Liam shook the thoughts away, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow. He heard her voice rise in his mind. Loud. Persistent.

“You’re wearing that scent again, aren’t you? Come here. Kiss me.”

He looked over his shoulder at the house they’d bought three years ago. It loomed in the dark, her reading chair illuminated in the window, staring at him.

It used to be a house that worked, made with bricks and beams, with running water and electricity they were going to grow old in. Now, it was a ruin. A wreckage of memories haunted by what could and should have been.

Liam turned his back on it. He kept digging until he heard the shovel hit something hard. He gasped. Swallowed. Dropped to his knees as his heart beat fast in his chest.

He removed soil with hands that hummed with blisters, revealing the box he’d buried in the yard the same afternoon the cemetery swallowed his wife. He lifted it up and brushed it down, unclipping its lid with a slight shake of breath.

The bottle looked almost identical to the one he’d put in her casket. It had the same glass. The same branding. The same scented liquid.

He always knew he’d do this. Knew he’d need something to stop him from driving to the cemetery and digging her rotting body out of the ground.

The grass bent at an odd angle as he sat on it. The night sky yawned as he lay back and stared into its ink.

He brought the bottle up to his face.

Removed the lid.

Inhaled.

Waited for memories of her to flood his thoughts as blood orange, vanilla, and musk flooded his lungs.

Before you go

My latest book, Waxwing Creek, is out now. It’s a collection of interconnected horror stories about a haunted motel in a small town called Hunt. It’s available in paperback and on Kindle (including Kindle Unlimited).

Feel free to check out reviews on Goodreads or click the button below to grab a copy.

BUY WAXWING CREEK

If you want to read more of my fiction on Substack, you can check out Lightbulb, 483, A Gentle Rain, or Cold House.

If you want to connect, I love hearing from readers. I keep an Instagram updated and post regularly to Threads and Notes. You can also find me on TikTok.

/ JJW